


Be It Fahrenheit or Centigrade

by flashindie



Series: I Got It Bad (and that ain't good) [1]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sick Character, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 00:27:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18435257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: “Guess we get to play nurse after all,” he says, voice low and loaded, and nobody should still be able to leer with a 103 degree fever, but Rio somehow manages it.“If only I’d remembered my costume,” she replies dryly, and Rio laughs, soft and deep.“Don’t worry, ma, I got a vivid imagination.”-Or Rio's sick. Set almost immediately after 2.06. Featuring a lot of snark, shoulder massages, non-sexual touching followed by very sexual touching, and Rio in a Boland Motors t-shirt.





	Be It Fahrenheit or Centigrade

“And last signature,” Linda says, pointing to the final page of the document, and Beth can’t quite stop her relieved exhale, signing the box and dropping the pen back to the other woman’s desk. She rolls her wrist, hearing it click, and smiling a little when Linda laughs. “I know, I know. This should be the last for the week. Just think of it this way – the only way there’d be _less_ paperwork is if we were selling less cars.”

It’s enough to make Beth laugh too, something warm and proud uncurling in her belly. 

Even without what Annie has nicknamed their ‘Pharm-borginis’ (not her best work, even she’d agreed), they’re moving cars faster than they can buy them. At the rate they’re going, Beth estimates they’ll have washed _all_ the current fake cash within eighteen months (she never did manage to fully count it after all), and she’s already been debating with Ruby and Annie over whether that means they wash their hands (so to speak) of the counterfeit cash game and go all in on the pharmaceuticals, or whether they look into printing and manufacturing costs on their own. She figures it’s probably a conversation she needs to have with Rio – if nothing else, the dirty cash side of the business _is_ still 60% his, but then she’s barely spoken to Rio in the two weeks since they became full-partners. Hell, even when he _has_ spoken to her, it’s been in five-word text messages or clipped, thirty second phone calls. 

And if she’s honest, she’s not sure if it makes her feel more pissed off or proud.

Probably both.

It’s usually both with him. 

“Oh,” Linda says, folding all the now-signed documents back into the binder at her desk. “Before I forget, your business partner is in your office. He said there wasn’t any hurry.”

It’s enough to make her stop, blink broadly over at Linda before pushing back her chair to stand up. 

“You need to tell me right away when he gets here,” and the words are out of her mouth faster than she can stop them, her voice a little too terse, and when Linda reels up at her, a blush high on her cheeks and embarrassment plain on her face, Beth has to force herself to soften her features.

She clears her throat guiltily, gesturing gently between them. 

“I just mean we’re both so busy. It can be hard to find the time to meet to talk, you know?” and she slips on her best PTA smile, watching Linda paint one on to match, even if she sees the vaguely knowing look in the other woman’s eyes. Not that it surprises her. She’s tried stamping out the gossip as best she can about her and Rio – laughing off any hint of innuendo (“Are you all forgetting that I’m married?” like they didn’t all know Dean had worked his way through half of Team Boland), but she sees the way they gossip in the lunchroom. Not that Rio helps much. Standing too close when he visits, laying his forearm across her chest. Once, he’d tucked her hair behind her ear and Beth had actually _seen_ one of the secretaries take a stealth shot on her iPhone. 

Linda nods, but nothing in her expression implies she believes her, and Beth resists the urge to over-explain, instead shifting into gear, a tightness low in her belly. 

“All done?”

“All done.”

And just like that, Beth turns on her heel and strides out of the admin office and down the hall towards her own. She can hear the click of her heels on the linoleum floors, hands finding her belly, smoothing down any fabric creases, feeling suddenly, oddly, self-conscious that she’d chosen to wear a dress that morning – like on some subconscious level she’d known. It’s nothing special at least, something knee-length and v-necked, with elbow-long sleeves. It fits tightly around her breasts and ribs, and a little loosely from the waist-down, giving her a limited, but not impossible range of movement. It’s cream, with a soft print of brown branches and little blue flowers that she’s told bring out her eyes, a matching fabric belt around her waist. She used to wear it to parent-teacher night, or to school fundraisers, but it works well enough for the office when she pairs it with the dark blue blazer she’s wearing now.

The air conditioning prickles a little at her neck as she nears her office, and she forces herself to take a breath. 

It’s just that it’s been two weeks, she thinks. That’s all. Two weeks since she saw him. Two weeks since she told him she would’ve taken 40. 

That’s all. 

She gets to her office, stepping through the door, and just like that, any nervousness is immediately replaced with a flood of toe-curling annoyance. Beth narrows her eyes. 

He’s sitting in her chair behind her desk, looking for all the world like he owns it, her handbag open in his lap, and a handful of its contents – two lipstick tubes, a tampon, a receipt and a bottle of water locked up in one, as he rifles through the rest of it with the other. 

“Are you looking for something?” she asks, and he looks up at her at that, eyes lazy and his mouth open. They just stare at each other for a minute, and then Rio’s gaze drops down her body, tracing the lines of her, as it too often does, before darting back to her open handbag in his lap. 

“People say you can tell a lot about a woman from what’s in her purse,” he hums, voice low and gravelly, and Beth closes the door behind her, folding her arms over her chest and staring at him. 

“Well, what’s mine say then?” 

He just laughs at that, dropping his handful of her things back into the bag before shoving it back below her desk, where it must have been when he found it. He’s quiet for a minute, and Beth resists the urge to tap her foot. Her gaze finds the clock – it’s barely two. She hopes Dean’s remembered Friday is early school pick-up. Maybe she should send him a text to remind him, just in case. 

“We’re getting twice as many cars in next week,” Rio says abruptly, and her gaze finds him again, leaning back into her chair, folding his arms across his chest, mirroring her pose. “My contact had a deal fall through. We’re buying in as a favour. We can move it, and he ain’t a bad one to owe you a favour.”

Beth pushes out a hip, her flutter of irritation growing into something firmer. 

“This sounds like the sort of decision you’d talk to _your partner_ about before making,” Beth says, and Rio’s face tightens, as she knew it would. “We’re already at capacity here. We’re selling more cars than we ever have, and my staff are struggling to keep up –”

“So hire more.”

“It’s not that simple.” 

Rio just arches an eyebrow at her, and Beth glares. 

“I’m serious, it’s _not_. I mean, even putting aside the fact that recruiting _anyone_ takes time, the FBI is still sniffing around both of us and I’d prefer not to draw attention to the fact that a business that’s been in the red for almost a decade is suddenly booming.”

“New management’ll do that,” Rio says with a shrug, and Beth frowns, pushing away from the door and stepping towards him. 

“Yes, _management_ , which, in case you forgot, is something I _am_ now. You have to talk to me about these things, you can’t just sign us up for business that we’re not going to be able to meet. I’m trying to build a reputation.”

He laughs tightly, hotly, in that way that he does, and Beth squares her shoulders, standing only a few feet away from him now, and looking down at him in _her. chair_ , anger growing righteously in her belly, when suddenly he _coughs_. 

Beth blinks, the sound so jarringly, alarmingly _un-Rio_ she finds herself briefly surprised into silence.

“You wanted 50/50,” he tells her, seizing the opportunity, voice not gravelly, she realises, but _hoarse_. “You said it at yours, we both have a job here. I get you the drugs, you get ‘em through. This is _your_ job, sweetheart, and if you think –”

And he coughs again, louder this time covering his mouth with a balled up fist, and Beth narrows her eyes, taking in the bags under his, and realises it’s not just that – his skin, usually warm and tanned, is dipped and sallow, a line of sweat pearling at his temple, his breath rough and low, his shoulders sloped beneath his black, button-down shirt. 

He hasn’t stood up yet. 

Why hasn’t he stood up yet? 

“Are you sick?” she asks, and Rio rolls his eyes.

“Your part of this is to move the product, not decide how much we move. That’s your fifty,” he says it slowly, like she’s simple (like _stay in your little lane_ ), and without even thinking, she steps into his space, putting the back of her hand to his forehead, ignoring the way he twitches back, looking at her in surprise. He covers it quickly, replacing it with a carefully blank look as she grazes her cool fingers across his too-warm skin.

Her brow furrows, and she bites her lip, unable to help it, and the moment seems strangely loaded, and she has the stark memory of the last – the only – time she’s really _touched_ him, and how he’d been too warm then too, but for an entirely different range of reasons. Rio looks up at her, and she sees it, the moment the mood changes on his face. 

“Oh, you wanna play nurse?” he asks, voice low, and it’s not really fair the way that that stirs something in her, even less fair when she feels his hand slip up the back of her dress, just enough to curl around the back of one of her thighs. She grabs his hand in hers, shoving it off and _out_ , and stepping away from him. 

“I think you have a temperature,” she says, bending forwards and reaching for the bottom drawer of her desk. She’d put a first aid kit in it not long after taking over for purely practical reasons, and then replaced it with a more thorough, more expensive one after Rio had agreed to her deal – for, well, even more practical reasons, she supposes. She likes to be prepared. 

She rifles through it quickly, pulling out the thermometer. Expecting a reaction, she promptly grabs a hold of Rio’s head, and before he even knows what’s happening, pulls him against her chest like she does with the kids when they fuss, shoving the thermometer into his ear. He jerks a little in surprise and she tightens her grip, waiting the five seconds for the thermometer to beep, and she thinks he really must be sick to not resist, or, then, his breath warm, even through the fabric of her dress, at the curve of her breast, maybe not. 

Or maybe definitely, she thinks, looking at the reading on the thermometer.

“You have a fever,” she says, still holding his head, fingers grazing roughly against the static of his short hair, and as if in response, he opens his mouth just enough to bite at her breast, soft really, but hard enough she can feel it through the fabric of her bra and her dress. She shoves his head away, ignoring the heat that has shot between her legs and the shit eating grin on his face as she cleans the thermometer. 

“Have you taken anything for it?”

“I’m fine, ma, I’m just here to talk shop.”

“You can’t talk shop with a fever,” she says. “Especially not one you’re _clearly_ ignoring. Do you know what ignoring a fever does?”

He widens his eyes innocently, faux naively, and Beth can feel herself getting unreasonably annoyed again. 

“Sweats it out?” 

“ _Escalates_ it,” Beth supplies, firming up her gaze as Rio dramatically rolls his eyes, leaning back in the seat, legs spread, arms folded against his chest. 

“It’s a cold.” 

“You’ve been to the doctor? You know that for sure?” she asks. “It could be the flu, or an infection, or pneumonia, or like, a million other things, and if you don’t look after yourself, it’s only going to get worse.” 

“All this bossin’ got you fixin’ to play mama, baby?” Rio says, eyebrows raised and chin down, voice leaden with faux sweetness, and Beth scowls.

“More that I don’t want my supplier to slow down business by putting himself in the hospital.” 

It’s enough to make him surge to his feet, too quick, even in this state, and he makes neat work of looming over Beth, standing too close, enough she can hear his hoarse breaths, almost _feel_ the heat that radiates off him. She stands firm though, looking up at him. 

“Oh, I’m the supplier now? I thought I was partner? You want to keep promotin’ yourself? Want to play CEO next? Chairman of the board?” 

Beth rolls her eyes, and at least this she can handle – she’s dealt with petulant boys before. Hell, she’s dealt with a petulant _Rio_ before. And he really does look pretty unwell. She wonders if he even knows that he’s swaying as he stands. 

She opens her mouth to snap at him, but looking at his hot gaze, at his wet lips and narrow chest before her, she thinks of changing tacts.

“Look, your temperature’s not _too_ high,” she tries, deliberately softening her tone and smoothing out her features, the way she does when Danny’s pretending that scraping his knee hadn’t really hurt that much. She gestures back to the small sofa against the back wall of her office. “Maybe just sit down for half an hour? You can stay here, I’m out on floor this afternoon anyway, so you can have the place to yourself. Just lie down. Take a breath. I’ll leave the blinds closed, so nobody will even know you’re here, and you can just let yourself out when you feel a little better.” 

He just stares at her then, an impossible expression on his face, and Beth sighs, adjusting her blazer slightly, and turning on her heel. She figures _whatever_. She tried. He’ll do what he wants anyway.

He usually does.

*

“Karen will fix the paperwork up for you,” Beth says, leading the woman back through the lot towards the accounts department. The woman’s practically glowing, skin pink with excitement at her new car, and Beth can’t quite help the tired grin that finds her face. It’s a perfect fit for her after all – only the two kids, but a big dog, and a taste for camping during school breaks. It’ll _work_ for the family, and Beth feels that newly familiar warmth at knowing that she’s _good_ at this.

She drops the woman with accounts, shivering a little as the hit of air conditioning finds the back of her knees. To say she’s exhausted is an understatement, and she glances at the clock hanging above reception – it’s already almost six, a half hour after closing time, but she’d felt good about the sale, and is relieved to find she’d been right. She’s still got to cross check the financial reports Dwight had emailed through earlier in the afternoon, sign off on the servicing fees for the new run of vehicles, and have a look through the supply list of their pharm-borginis that Rio has inevitably left on her desk as usual. It’s at least another hour of work, and she resists the urge to groan, fingers lifting to rub at her aching neck, figuring at least back in her office she’ll be able to kick off her heels and rub her swollen feet too. 

Cracking the door to her office, she flicks on the light, and almost screams in fright at the heavy groan that sounds from the sofa. 

She stops dead, eyes adjusting to the site of his long, deceptively narrow body sprawled on her office sofa. He’d found the blanket she’d kept above the bookcase in the corner, and sometime in the last four hours, he must’ve curled up in it, only now it’s been shoved off, twisted around his knees, and even from across the room, his shirt looks damp with sweat. She closes the door quickly behind her, and moves closer towards him. 

“Rio?” she asks cautiously, reaching his side, but he doesn’t say anything, not then, not when she reaches for his shoulder, tugging him over just enough that his eyes open wearily, his lashes matting together as he blinks slowly, considering her. 

“Fuck,” he says. “I’m still here?” 

She nods affirmatively, her brow furrowing as she takes in the damp, clammy look of him, the way his mouth is open, panting wet between them. 

“You gonna bite me again if I take your temperature?” she asks softly, and she’s more relieved than she cares to admit when his eyes drop to her chest and his mouth tugs into his usual smirk. He shakes his head though, and Beth moves away only long enough to grab the first aid kit again from the bottom drawer of her desk, kick off her shoes, tug off her blazer, and set up a little camp beside the sofa on the floor. He watches her as she does it, eyes half-lidded, and she doesn’t know how he’s able to lose half his usual focus and yet none of his intensity. 

Pulling the thermometer out, he lets her put it in his ear this time with little fuss, and she frowns when it beeps. 

“103,” she says. “You’re a degree away from me calling 911.” 

“No such thing,” he replies, breathing still a little hoarse. If it’s possible, he melts further down into the sofa, and Beth arches an eyebrow down at him in response.

“Really?” 

“I ain’t goin’ to no hospital.” 

“Rio, you –”

“You want to explain to Agent Turner why you’re hoverin’ over my bedside?” 

“We could give a fake name.” 

“Won’t matter. Too many people watchin’.” 

“I could just drop you off. You’re out on bail. So what if you’re sick? If I’m not there - -” 

He just looks at her then, and it’s painful, the fact that they both know she _couldn’t_. She’d have to walk him in, get him into the bed, then she wouldn’t be able to leave until she knew what was wrong, and then - - 

“Is there someone I can call?” she asks instead, and Rio just gives her a dark look at that. 

“For _you_ to call? Nah,” he all but growls, and Beth sighs, frowning as she rests back on her heels. She looks up at him on the sofa, bites the inside of her cheek, as he rolls his neck around to better see her. 

“Well, you can’t drive yourself anywhere.” 

Rio’s quiet for a minute at that, looks vaguely like he might debate it, but ends up conceding with a shrug. He just stares at her then, obviously thinking sluggishly, his lips finally tugging into what she’s surprised to realise is a grin.

“Guess we get to play nurse after all,” he says, voice low and loaded, and nobody should still be able to leer with a 103 degree fever, but Rio somehow manages it. 

“If only I’d remembered my costume,” she replies dryly, and Rio laughs, soft and deep. 

“Don’t worry, ma, I got a vivid imagination.”

*

In a lot of ways, she’s not sure she’s ever been so glad to have raised four kids, Annie, and, well, _Dean_. Ruby had joked a few years ago that the both of them deserved their honorary doctorates in medicine for the scrapes they’d tended to, the fevers they’d nursed, the own wounds they’d both carried after c-sections, and hell, that was before Sara’s transplant and Dean’s bullet wound. Beth might not have been able to fish the bullet out of Rio’s boy, or stitch him up on Emma’s bed, but nursing? Nursing Beth knows how to do.

She makes him drink the whole bottle of water from her handbag and swallow two Advil before she lets him lie back down, pulling the blanket from his legs and tugging off his shoes, dropping both to the floor beside the sofa as she does it, and then turns to leave the room. 

She goes first to the staff kitchen, grabbing two glasses and filling the biggest jug she can find with water, before eyeballing the fridge for whatever’s there she thinks he might be able to stomach – making an inventory list in her head of Angie’s bags of vegetables and Lenny’s uncooked chicken, before ducking back down to accounts. 

There’s only Karen still there, finalising Beth’s last sale, and so she ducks her head into the office, hiding her bare feet behind the door jam. 

“I’m going to have a late one, Karen,” Beth says. “Really want to get stuck into things, so I just thought I’d say goodnight now. Thanks so much for staying back, and don’t forget to log your extra hour in your timesheet, and Ms. Wilson, congratulations again on the car, you’ll have to send us some photos for our wall when you take it out to the lake house.”

Karen and the customer both beam back at her, saying their goodnights, as Beth swivels on her heel, doing a quick sweep of the rest of the lot and, on finding it empty, beelining to the storage closet. She drops the jug and glasses to the floor, leaning up to grab a couple of old corporate branded, Boland Motors t-shirts, a second first-aid kit, just in case, and a small container she fills with tepid water. 

It’s got to take her at least fifteen minutes in all, but when she slips back into the office, Rio hasn’t moved an inch. He’s still curled on his side, body lifted slightly towards where she was stationed on the floor beside him, his eyes half-lidded, his neck visibly damp with sweat, and right, Beth thinks. Right. 

Carrying her armful of goods, she sets up, pouring them both glasses of water, dumping the contents of the second first aid kit on the floor and placing the bowl of tepid water beside it. She grabs the scissors off her desk, making neat work of cutting up one of the corporate-branded t-shirts into rags, throwing them into the water, and rolling her sleeves up, as far as they’ll go. 

“Okay,” Beth says. “Take off your shirt.” 

He blinks up at her at that, eyebrows halfway up his forehead, and Beth ignores the twist in her belly at it and instead smiles too sweetly. 

“Or would you like me to do it for you?” 

And the line would work on her kids, even on Dean, but Rio’s fevered grin just mellows out as he makes no effort to move, and Beth rolls her eyes, making neat work undoing the buttons of his shirt, his body an almost deadweight in her arms which would worry her if Rio wasn’t giving her _that_ smirk as she undressed him, fingers tentative when they brushed his very real, very firm, very warm chest.

And stupid, she thinks. He’s been _inside_ her, but she’s oddly aware of the fact that this feels like a new degree of intimacy. That the pair of them evade each other as much as they try to pin the other down, and it wasn’t pure coincidence that neither of them were naked the one time they’d fucked. 

As if seeing her internal monologue, and taking pity on her, Rio leans forwards suddenly, pulling his shirt off the rest of the way, helping her to help him. He drops it to the floor beside the couch, briefly covering the contents of the first aid kit. Not that Beth sees it. Not right then. Right then she’s more focused on figuring out wherever her breath has gone and claiming it again. 

She’d imagined what he’d look like, of course she has. With the way he buttons his shirt to the neck, typically wearing clothes that fit, but swallow him like a second skin, only leaving the briefest glimpses of tattoos and tanned skin, she just…wasn’t sure if she expected _this_. Because she knew he was strong – knew it even before he’d had no troubles lifting her and holding her weight against the wall as he’d fucked her – but he’s almost sinewy with muscle, his narrow form bellying a strength that is visible in every inch of him like this. He is all hard lines in a way Beth’s never seen before, not in person at least, not even when Dean was in his highschool football prime, and Beth is suddenly conscious of her own softness – not in a bad way exactly, just in the complete _otherness_ of everything about the two of them. In the tanned-hard-strong-male line of him, and the pale-soft-curving-female one of her. 

She blinks, and Rio’s eyes slip shut – in submission, in sickness, in the _too-much-ness_ of this moment, she’s not sure, but her hand finds his forehead again, feeling that too-familiar heat, and she’s resting herself on the side of the sofa beside him as she reaches down for one of the t-shirt scraps on the floor. 

His hand comes up, grabbing her wrist, as if he’s suddenly realised what she’s doing, and Beth just watches him, watching her. 

“It’ll cool you down,” she tells him softly, the water from the rag dripping down her wrist, soaking into the lap of her dress already, and after a moment, he lets her go, and her hand lifts to his forehead. His eyes flutter shut as she softly pulls the damp cloth over his forehead, down his cheek, wiping away the sweating fever, pulling down his neck, over the eagle at his neck. She dips the cloth again, doing the other side of his face and neck, before pulling it down, dipping into his clavicle, feeling the hardness of his collarbone. 

He lets out a hoarse, scratchy breath as Beth pulls him forwards enough to drag the wet cloth across the back of his neck, his shoulders (the last time she’d - - no, don’t) and she squeezes the cloth, enough that tepid water dribbles down his back. Lowering it back to the container to re-wet it, she comes back up, finding his back again, and this time, Rio buries his head in his shoulder, forehead warm even through the fabric of her dress, mouth huffing wet breaths into her neck that twist up her belly. She blinks, running the wet cloth down his spine, feeling the craggy knobs of it as he arches closer into her, against her, until suddenly he’s pushing her away enough that he can have an almost aggressive coughing fit over the side of the sofa. 

The sound cuts through the dim sounds of the office, of the muted shuffles outside of Karen saying goodbye to the customer, and giving her the keys to her new car, and god, Beth hopes she can’t hear, that she doesn’t come in, that she doesn’t - - 

She sighs, leaning down to grab the glass of water for Rio, holding it towards him as his coughing fit slows, and he takes it, swallowing it too quickly and setting himself off again. 

“You’ve got to slow down,” she hisses, pulling the glass from his hands, ignoring the filthy look he sends her. It’s already been harder to take his threats seriously lately. She thinks it might be almost impossible after seeing him like this – kittenish in his anger and petulance, vulnerable in his weakness. She tries not to think much more of that, handing him the glass again and watching him take smaller sips, eyes never leaving hers. 

When he’s done, he passes her the glass to put back on the floor, and lies down again, eyes slipping shut, almost against his will, if the grimace on his face is anything go by, and Beth shuffles a little closer, reaching for the cloth again. 

She does his arms first, tracing the tattoos littering them, and then the sides of his body, before finally, flushing, dragging the cloth to his chest. He’s almost radiating heat, the fever consuming his long form, pulsing below his skin, and she can feel it even through the cloth as she trails it down his chest, mopping up sweat, then down to the hard line of his abs. She can’t stop her breath from catching, her fingers slowing just a little, the pressure softening, and when she looks up, he’s watching her hotly through half-lidded eyes, and her lips are parted, why are they parted? And her hand’s dragging the cloth lower, lower, until it hits the buckle on his jeans. 

She blinks, startled, and then Rio’s hand is on top of hers, dragging it down hard against the line of his pants. 

“Keep goin’,” he says, voice low and gravelly, but she can hear it, the hint of mocking in it, and she scowls, squeezing the cloth so that the water oozes out against his crotch, and he swears, letting go of her hand, and letting her get up. She drops the cloth back into the container, but the thing is, she does want him to take off his pants. Denim is a heat trap at the best of times, and she looks at his legs, can feel the heat coming off them, and she bites her lip, gaze finding his again, and he nods, just slightly, just enough, and Beth’s hands are only slightly shaking when they find his belt again, tugging it off in one short, neat swoop. She reaches for his fly – unbuttoning the clasp and unzipping it, and finally pulling his pants down his sharp, narrow hips, down his thin legs, grabbing his socks as she goes, until he’s just there in his black boxer-briefs, his eyes half-lidded, watching her, his skin nearly vibrating with heat. 

It’s her fingers, not the cloth, that finds his thigh, then her palm, that grabs it firm, like he’d grabbed her in the bathroom, all those weeks ago, and she can feel him watching her, his gaze too-focused, too _much_ , and his hoarse breath is all she can hear and then - - and then her phone rings. 

Beth stands up too quickly, passing Rio the cloth to keep cooling himself if he needs to as she strides back to her desk where she’d tossed her phone. It’s Dean, and she answers quickly. 

“Hey!” he says, voice too-loud over the line, and she almost covers it, oddly uncomfortable at the thought of Rio being able to hear. “So, my mom swung by today. Dropped off some real goodies, including her always amazing chicken pot-pie. I’ve kept it warm for dinner, so we’re ready whenever you are.” 

Beth exhales, fumbling a little on the spot. 

“Oh, that was really sweet of her,” Beth says, trying to forget all the times she needed it, and Mrs Boland Sr was nowhere to be found. “But I’m working late tonight. One of the deliveries was a few hours behind schedule, so I wasn’t even able to start the assessments or paperwork until four.” 

The lie comes too easily, usually does these days, and she looks sideways to Rio watching her carefully, and quickly turns around, keeping her back to him. 

“How late?” Dean asks, and Beth’s fingers find the tight, aching knot of muscle at her shoulders again, digging in and circling. 

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t wait up though.” 

“The kids miss you, Beth. They keep asking when mommy’s tucking them in again, and what am I supposed to say to that?”

“I can tuck them in all weekend. It’s half the reason I’m staying late tonight.” 

“Sure it isn’t bookclub?” 

And she clenches her eyes shut at that, wonders how exactly Dean can be so stupid, so much of the time, but almost have a sixth sense for when something is about Rio. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say to that.” 

“Huh,” Dean says, and he promptly hangs up. Beth pinches the bridge of her nose, takes a deep breath, and tries to school herself before she turns back to Rio, walking over to resume her position on the edge of the sofa beside him and reaching for the wet cloth. She’s run it mechanically over one of his calves, when he finally speaks. 

“That your husband?” 

Beth looks up at him, and she should’ve figured he wouldn’t let this one go. 

“Yes.” 

“He mad you ain’t coming home?” 

“What do you think?” 

He opens his mouth to reply, but coughs instead, racking his body forwards, and Beth grabs the glass of water, passing it up to him. 

They’re quiet for a while, Beth making organised, detached work of cooling down Rio’s legs, and Beth can vaguely hear Karen leaving for the night in the background, yelling a _goodnight_ to Beth which she doesn’t bother returning. 

“What’s the deal with you two anyway?” 

Beth looks up at him, and shrugs. 

“There’s no deal. We’re married.” 

“You don’t talk like you’re married.” 

“You base that off hearing us have what? One? Two conversations?” 

He shrugs, passing her back the water glass and leaning back onto the sofa, watching her. There’s a fresh line of sweat at his temple again, and when she drops Rio’s water glass back to the ground, she grabs the thermometer, glad when he only rolls his eyes a little, tilting his head to the side and letting her take his temperature. 

101.5. A little better, at least. 

She cleans it with a tissue, putting it back into the first aid kit. 

“You didn’t run over when I shot him.” 

The statement surprises her, makes her sit up a little taller. Neither of them have brought up that night since it happened, not really at least, and she finds herself oddly taut at the suddenness of it all. 

“So?” 

“So most people run over when someone they love gets shot. See if they’re okay, hold onto ‘em, all that movie shit.” 

Beth just stares at him, racking her head for something. She had gone over of course, after he’d left, but she hadn’t held him, and she certainly hadn’t run. She’d just looked at him, before calling 911.

“I was in shock,” she says, and he just looks at her, like he can see straight through her, like he knows, but there’s no way he could, and he does that little, breathy laugh he does. 

“Plus in my experience, happy wives don’t fuck gangbangers in bar bathrooms while they’re doin’ date night with their husbands.” 

She sways a little, face going neutral, at least this? This she can handle. 

“Fuck a lot of other people’s wives, do you?” she asks dryly, and Rio laughs again, but it’s different this time, a smirk tugging at his lips as he looks her up and down, and then away, as if in thought. 

“I get around,” and she’s not sure what she expected, but suddenly she’s mortified, dropping her hands from him, clearing her throat. She stands up, getting him another glass of water instead, shoving it into his hands, and he seems briefly surprised by her reaction, but quickly covers it, watching as she puts visible, physical distance between the two of them.

“ _Elizabeth_ ,” he growls, and Beth says, “Here, put this on,” and grabs the other corporate branded Boland Motors shirt from the floor, almost throwing it at him. 

“I’m going to find you something to eat,” and disappears out into the hallway. And it’s stupid, isn’t it stupid, because of course he’s been with other women, of course he _gets around_ , he _oozes_ sex, and if anything, Beth has probably been an amusement more than anything, something to get his leg over, and he’s done that now, and oh, god, she thinks, what is she _doing?_

*

She only makes it as far as pulling Lenny’s chicken out of the fridge before she thinks _screw it_ , grabbing her phone out of her dress pocket and calling Ruby.

She answers on the second ring. 

“Please tell me you urgently need me for something so I can _not_ watch _Finding Nemo_ for the eight thousandth time.” 

And at least it makes Beth laugh, albeit a little hysterically. 

“Rio’s sick.” 

There’s silence on the other end of the line, and then a “Like, in the head? Because we already knew that, babe.” 

Beth laughs again, louder this time, a little more hysterically as she tries to find her breath. It echoes around the empty kitchen, and she prays Rio can’t hear her. 

“No, I mean, like, he has the flu or something, and he’s here, at the office, and I just,” she waves a hand around. “I’m making a mess, Ruby. This feels really, really messy, and it was fine, it _is_ fine, but - -“ she exhales, sharply, and Ruby interrupts. 

“Deep breaths, babe,” Ruby says, and she can hear the kids in the background, Dory singing _just keep swimming_ loudly on the TV, then the sudden muteness of it, meaning Ruby’s found herself a quiet room to sit. 

“Can’t you call someone to pick him up, or drop him off somewhere?” 

“I’ve already tried that. He won’t let me.” 

“Why not?” 

“Why do you think? He doesn’t trust me.” 

“You could just leave him there? Go home?” 

“He has a 103 degree fever.” 

“Damn,” Ruby says, voice loaded.

“Right? And we’re kind of screwed if he dies on us.” 

Ruby’s quiet then over the line, like she doesn’t quite agree, and Beth frowns, pushing her hip into the kitchen counter and trying to loosen the tightness in her belly. 

“Do you need help?” Ruby asks, voice soft, and Beth shakes her head before realising that Ruby can’t see her. She stands up a little straighter. 

“No,” Beth says. “I shouldn’t have called. I’m sorry.” 

And she wants to tell her – wants to tell her all of it. That Ruby was wrong – Beth’s not a side piece. She’s a conquest at best. Another unhappy housewife for him to bend over, and it shouldn’t hurt, it shouldn’t even matter, but - - 

“You can always call,” Ruby says, and Beth smiles, but it doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “Keep me updated.” 

“I will. Love you.” 

“Love you.” 

Beth hangs up, and she takes a breath.

*

She ends up frying up the chicken in the kitchenette’s electric frypan, finding a can of creamed corn in the pantry and a couple of stock cubes she adds to boiling water. There’s carrots in Karen’s drawer in the fridge which she slices up too, and some plain cooked pasta too that she usually tosses in a salad. Beth seasons it with salt and pepper, finally stirring in a little bit of spinach. It’s not exactly her best work, but it’s as close to a farmhouse soup as Beth can make in here, and she pours it into a bowl, ignoring her own pangs of hunger as she steps back into the office.

The room smells almost musty with sweat and she wasn’t so long out there, but Rio is fast asleep, and Beth almost has to double take. She hadn’t actually expected him to put _on_ the Boland Motors shirt. It was a large size, the only one they’d had left, a starched white with the old logo – that yellow circle with Boland Motors scrawled in it big in the middle. Rio’s basically swimming in it, and the effect has him looking almost painfully small and young, something not helped by the long shadows his closed eyelashes cast down his sallow cheeks. 

She walks a little closer to him, putting the soup on the floor beside him, and touches his forehead lightly. He’s still too hot, and Beth bites the inside of her cheek, trying to decide whether or not she should wake him and feed him, or let him sleep. She decides on the latter, but grabs the cloth from the water bucket anyway, draining it as best she can, and rubbing it over his forehead again, down his neck, below the shoulders of his shirt, her breath catching when he groans, guttural, and leans into her touch without waking.

Suddenly she’s exhausted. Just the weight of the day, of _this_ , resting too heavy on her, and maybe getting some rest wouldn’t be a bad thing. She has no idea how he’ll fair anyway, and if looking after her kids when they’re sick has taught her anything, it’s to steal sleep as best she can. And okay, she thinks, clearing a spot on the floor. She grabs her blazer, folding it into a pillow below her head, she’ll just rest her eyes for a little while.

*

She’s not sure what wakes her, but whatever it does, wakes her with a start. She sits up too quickly, blanket falling off her, and blinking wildly around. There’s a laugh above her, Rio walking backwards towards the sofa, still in just his underwear and that enormous Boland Motors shirt

“And here I thought I was helpin’,” his voice is hoarser even than before, gravelly with whatever cold or flu he has, and Beth looks up at him, at the blanket now pooling at her waist. 

“It’s not even cold in here,” she says. “The air conditioner is on a timer, it flips off overnight.” 

Rio just looks at her, as if debating something, finally he just shrugs, sitting down on the sofa. 

“You squirm in your sleep,” he tells her. “Makes your dress ride up. I didn’t mind, but I figured you might.” 

She blinks again, suddenly starkly aware of the carpet scratching at her exposed upper thigh, the crushed fabric of her dress so high it’s almost bunched at her waist. She can feel herself flush, thinking of the daggy, full coverage underwear she has on – white with green polka dots – a far cry from the lacy blue thong she’d had on the last time he saw her underwear. And god. _Squirming_ around on the floor? She doesn’t think she’d been dreaming. 

There must be a look on her face, one that he misreads, because he throws his hands up, annoyed.

“Damn, sorry for tryin’ to be a gentleman,” he says, and Beth softens her features, reaching under the blanket to wriggle her dress back down her hips.

“How are you feeling?” 

He just shrugs. 

“A little better, a little worse. I zapped your soup.” 

He kicks a little at the empty bowl at his feet, and Beth looks back at him. 

“Not my best.”

“Nah, it was ‘right though. Hit the spot.” 

Beth opens her mouth to reply, and then furrows her brow. 

“How do you know what my best is?” 

“I’ve been in your kitchen enough when you’ve had pots on. Usually have a better sense of smell than right now too,” he says, sniffing his (obviously) blocked nose as testimony, and Beth clambers to her feet, grabbing the thermometer as she goes. He sighs when he sees it, but shuffles over on the sofa so that she can sit beside him, pushing the thermometer into his ear. It beeps and she holds it up to him so he can read it – 100.6. 

“Almost normal,” she says, and Rio grins at her. 

“See? Told you I was fine.” 

Beth just gives him a look at that, grabbing a tissue to clean the thermometer again. 

“What time is it anyway?” she asks, and Rio looks out the window, pulling the blinds back a bit. It’s pitch black outside, the moon an almost perfect circle – like that first dollop of cream on a cake top. 

“Late,” he replies, and Beth rolls her eyes, turning back to him and frowning at the twinge in her neck. Before she can help it, her fingers find it, pressing into the hard knot of muscle there. It had already been pretty bad, but it seems like sleeping on the floor has done it no favours. She circles her fingers a little, and jumps when Rio pushes her hand aside, replacing her fingers with his own. He makes a _tsk_ -ing noise, which is not a sound she ever expected to hear from him, and before she can even react, he’s pushing her off the sofa, forcing her to the floor and moving to sit directly behind her, his legs bracing either side of her. 

“What are –” 

She doesn’t get another word out before she feels his elbow pushing into the knotted muscle at her neck and she gasps out, half in surprise, half in pain, leaning forwards to get away from the pressure. He just makes that noise again, grabbing her and pulling her back, bracing her chest with his other arm and holding her towards him, circling his elbow into the knot. She scrambles a little at the arm bracing her, but even in this state, he’s too strong, and then his elbow hits just the right note, and Beth can’t stop the moan as she feels the muscle release a little. 

He lets her go then, replacing his elbow instead with his broad fingers, working out the rest of the knots, and Beth feels her eyelids quiver shut. She can’t remember the last time she got a massage – Dean certainly never offered, and she could never really justify the cost, and she feels like she has about twelve years’ worth of tension in her back and her shoulders. She’s vaguely aware that the noises she’s making are borderline pornographic, but it feels too good for her to care. Or, at least it does until Rio leans a little closer, body radiating with heat, and says, “Damn, darlin’, you’re tight everywhere, huh?” his voice loaded with innuendo, and she reaches sideways enough to grab some of his leg hair and tug it painfully. He laughs, unfazed, hands still working her shoulders, as he reaches down to bite lightly at the back of her neck, and she hopes he doesn’t see the way it makes her thighs clench together, but from the way his laugh deepens, she knows that he did. 

“Stop doing that,” she hisses back, and his hands still on her shoulders. 

“Doin’ what?” 

“You know what.” 

And he just groans, smacking his hands down on her shoulders lightly, and letting her go. He drops sideways onto the sofa, rubbing furiously at his face and Beth scowls up at him, trying not to let herself get distracted by the look of him – and god, how can she want him this bad, even like this? Flushed and sweaty, in that enormous Boland Motors shirt, his semi bulging in his black boxer-briefs. She clenches her thighs together again, and scrambles away from the sofa. 

After a second, he drops his hands, staring at her from his position on his back on the sofa. 

“You always been this good at killin’ a mood?” he asks her, eyes half-lidded, lips drawn, and Beth’s scowl only deepens. 

“I don’t know, have _you_?” 

They just stare at each other then, in some sort of quasi competition, and it’s only when he coughs again that it’s broken. Beth sighs, filling up his water glass and passing it over, before rummaging through the first aid kit for the Advil, popping him another two (she’s sure he must be due) and passing those over too. He sits up only long enough to swallow them before lying back down on the sofa. 

“You should try and get some more sleep,” Beth says, and she grabs her blazer, re-folding it into a pillow, only Rio’s sighing above her from the sofa, rolling onto his side and scooting back as far as can into the cushions. He pats the space in front of him, and Beth arches an eyebrow. 

“There’s not enough room,” she tells him. 

“There is.” 

“And believe it or not, I don’t actually want to get whatever it is you’ve got.” 

“Baby, you’ve been all over me tonight. If you’re gonna get it, you’re gonna get it. Only thing sleepin’ on the floor is gonna do is fuck up your shoulder even more than it already is.” 

Beth scowls, thinking of his hands on her, working like something close to magic. Almost subconsciously, she rolls her shoulder, and then thinks, well, _fuck it_. She’s already gone this far. She gets up slowly off the floor, ignoring Rio’s shit eating grin, and tries to work out if it’d be worse to sleep face to face or back to chest, finally deciding the latter is probably the safer option as she slides in beside him, pressing her back into his front. 

Rio might be almost painfully narrow, but there’s not _really_ enough room, and she thinks of sliding back off the sofa when Rio circles his arms around her waist, pulling her flush back against him, and hooking a leg around her own. 

“Go to sleep,” he growls into her ear, as if reading her mind, and to maybe both of their surprise, she does.

*

This time, she knows _exactly_ what wakes her up.

Namely it’s the hand spread wide against her belly and the hard cock pressed into the side of her ass. It doesn’t help that the room is well-lit, even through the blinds, signalling the day, the dull sound of Saturday morning traffic echoing around the office, the air thick and heavy with Rio’s wet breathing and she feels it, him stirring behind her, his voice heavy when he speaks. 

“You _squirm_ ,” he groans against the back of her neck, and, almost without thinking, Beth pushes her hips back just to hear him groan again, louder this time, and he retaliates by bringing the hand at her belly up to grab her breast - _hard_. She gasps a little, wriggling her hips, and then his other hand is there, jerking up her dress until it’s wrapped around her waist, and she can feel his hand hooking into the crotch of her panties to yank them down. And she shouldn’t want this, _shouldn’t_ , knows he’s with other people, knows he doesn’t really want her, but she just - - she can’t help it. It burns, how much she wants this. 

“ _Rio_ ,” she keens, already wet when he finds her clit, and the groan he makes when he realises is almost too much for her to bear. He circles it roughly, drawing little yipping sounds from her, and then it’s gone, and she feels him – he’s too close for her not to – tugging down his underwear behind her, lining himself up, and thrusting into her. 

It’s too much, it’s too _soon_ and she writhes forwards, almost falling off the couch, only held in place by his hand still hard and tight on her breast. He gets his other hand under her top thigh, pulling it up, giving him a better angle to fuck up into her, and he finally let’s go of her breast to drop his hand back to her clit. 

Neither of them are going to last long. Too tired, too sick, in his case, but it’s rough, and better than it should be, better than Dean two weeks ago, grabbing at her face, and she pushes the thought back as Rio fucks up into her, his pace firm and steady, his mouth sucking hickies into the back of her neck, just like last time, where he knows her hair will hide it. She’s scrambling backwards, unsure what to do with her hands until she reaches back, grabbing his hip with one hand and the back of his neck with the other, digging in her nails and feeling him stutter against her, and then he’s over the edge, spilling inside her, his fingers working her clit harder, faster, until she’s following shortly after him. 

They just stay like that for a minute, him softening inside her, his hand still under her thigh as he gently lowers her leg. He presses a kiss into the back of her neck, then drops his head to her shoulder, concealing his rumbling cough. 

“You should really go to the doctor today,” Beth says, and he laughs breathlessly against her, reaching his free hand up to grab her breast again, the suddenness of it making her clench around him. He groans, and it probably hurts, but he sounds so _pleased_ at the reaction he’s drawn from her, and she really needs to get off him – there’s something too intimate in this, something that shouldn’t - _doesn’t_ \- belong to her. 

She moves to slide off him, but he holds her still, for just a moment longer, before letting her go, watching as she stumbles off the sofa, cleaning him off her thighs with the same ripped bit of the Boland Motors t-shirt she’d used to cool him off six hours ago, watches as she tries to find where her panties are wedged between the cushions at the bottom of the sofa (and it feels strange now, to have been so embarrassed earlier by the polka dot print), finding them, slipping them on and finally pulling down her dress. 

Somewhere in all of that, he’d cleaned himself off with the same scrap of cloth, pulled his underwear up, and now he grabs his jeans off the floor, stepping easily into them. He pulls off the t-shirt and grabs his black button down, putting it on. 

Beth makes quick, ordered work of packing up the first aid kits, separating them onto her desk, and grabbing the jug and glasses, reaching for the soup bowl, only Rio beats her to it, following her out of her office and into the kitchen. They wash the few dishes in silence, before Beth turns to him, pushing her hip into the counter. She just watches him for a minute, watching her, before she reaches up a hand, brushing it over his forehead. It feels cool now, normal, and she lowers it. 

“You’ll be okay to drive?” she asks him, and he nods, gives her a soft grin that unlocks something inside her she doesn’t think she wants unlocked. She frowns up at him, and she thinks she sees a flicker of uncertainty cross his face. “When are the cars arriving?” 

“First thing Monday.” 

She nods, looking away, out across the lot. 

“I’m serious, you know,” she says, still not looking at him, but feeling Rio’s quizzical gaze on her. “You have to talk to me if you want to increase the orders. It’s going to be hell next week moving twice as many as usual. We’re already pushing it.” 

He exhales hoarsely, finally nodding in concession. 

“I might have a couple of people who can help out. Off the book temps,” he says. “We can pay them cash. They look legit too. All tattoos coverable.” 

He laughs a little at that, like it’s an inside joke, and Beth rolls her eyes, but says, “Thanks.” 

And he just nods again, looking at her like he wants to say something else, but then thinks better of it. 

“You too, yeah?” he says, and then he reaches out, hand at her shoulder, finding that knot again, digging his fingers in softly, massaging it briefly, perfectly enough that Beth’s eyes flutter shut, and when she opens them again, he’s gone.

**Author's Note:**

> This was way longer than it was supposed to be, haha.
> 
> TItle from Peggy Lee's song, Fever.


End file.
